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Topic: melons (Read 7775 times)

I raise a lot of vegetebles and I visited a farm last year where they raise melons for the wholesale mkt. they had a machine that beds up the ground puts dripline in covers it with plastic mulch and has two seats on it for someone to ride and put in plants. It also injects a small amount of slurry of composted chicken manure in solution, and punches the hole for the plant. well my boys are carpenters and we built a sled this spring that puts the dripline down and lays the plastic but we have to have two guys either side to shovel dirt on the edgesof the plastic mulch and our doesn't get it down quite as smooth but it does works. I have been planting tomatoes with cages and a white plastic bag over it. It is a bit difficult because the wind here is awful. there is a huge mkt for melons at our farmers mkt so We hope to do well this year I will let you know how it turns out. by the way at the farm I told you about they rent bees and they said to pollinate a melon a bee hast to walk across it four times that is the incentive that got me into bees. and I will also be selling honey if I ever get to the point that I don't eat it all. I will let you know how it goes later this summer

This is my first year with a lot of melons. the guy I was talking about sold them to me wholesale last year so I am jumping in headfirst. The best thing is no weeds. when I start picking and selling I always get covered up with weeds so this is going to be better.I just let them lay on the ground because there are so many, but I cage my tomatoes so they dont touch the ground

just about all my watermelons are sprouting along with my green beans and peas. I was reading above and I do the same with my vine plants I have an old chain fence around the yard so I plant them all along the fence as well works good for me sofar.

it is going to be a good week here in W. Texas :D Tonight: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low near 53. South wind around 15 mph becoming west.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. West northwest wind 15 to 20 mph becoming south southwest.

Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. East wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 71. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 40. North northeast wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Saturday: Partly cloudy, with a high around 69. North northeast wind 10 to 15 mph becoming east southeast.

Saturday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low near 42. Southeast wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Sunday: Partly cloudy, with a high near 71. South southeast wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Sunday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 48. South wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Monday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 72.

Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 50.

Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 76.

Tuesday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low near 52.

Wednesday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 75.

did I say no weeds in my other post? not, the aisles are full of burmuda grass and weeds now. I should have known bettter I guess the roots frome the weeds sneak under the plastic and try to outgrow the cantelopes, and they probably would if alled to. but it is back to the santa claus method of integrated weed control HOHOHOHO

Bill -Well how come the idea of the plastic worked for the other farm, but not you? Did you use a lighter grade plastic that has degraded? I would think it would work well...... especially if it was covered in straw or something to hold it down.

it is working but the middles are not covered but i think they are using the water from under the plastic to grow verrrrry fastthe plastic is one and ahalf mil, forty inches wide that a wholeesale grower sold me. Burmuda grass is punching through it in a few places but it is not serious. there is about 30 inches between the rows that is where the weed i am going to have to ho are, the plastic is 8 mil on the tomatoes which I am going to leave in place as long as possible if I don't get disease or something in the soil there. I should last several years hopefully. I am trying to change from gardner to farmer and as with the bees I am not a quick learner but I will get it down pat.. I should have ripe tomatoes in about two or three weeks. that is when the farmers market starts here.

Bill-I can't remember how big your garden is, but with 30 inches as an isleway... why not put down some other mulch to combat the weeds? Maybe the newspaper and straw trick?

I hate weeds. That's one of the reasons we went for hydroponics. And we're not rich or anything. We built the whole system ourselves rather cheaply. It's reusable every year too. Plus, by having the plants up out of the soil, you cut out like 80% of the "problems" (such as soil borne illness, bugs).

I have been thinking along those lines. I can get cotton trash in the fall real inexpensively. I have a bunch of straw that I might use this year but it would be hard to get in now, as the runners are all over the middles. I am cutting the big weeds and hoping for the canopy to cover the others. I have been gardening for nearly forty years and was the garden center man in builders square and K-mart, still I am always learningI have a bunch of cantelopes develoting now it looks like I will get a large crop. I don't know if I will be able to use the same plastic for more than one year or not If i have to put it down every year I will probably do it like I have the tomatoes and leave enough room between the rows so I can go through with the discs. I can also see it is going to be hard to pick them, when I fill a basket I will have to carry it a long ways to get out of the field, I should have left a place every few rows to drive a trailor down when I am picking. I will regret that. Next year too I will raise plants and transplant them so as to get the canopy covering ther ground quickly, and also I can get melons to sell before the fourth of july that way, that would be very profitable here. Ps I have twenty five acres and I am a long ways from getting all in garden but every year I plant more and more . see you

back when I was in New Jersey My church had a giant pumpkin contest for the gardeners. My son was about eight or nine then and he grew a ninety seven lb pumpkin. came in second I never grew them much they are are a squash bugs dream. But that reminds me I need to plant some pumpkins while I can still get them before haloween. I got a load of seed from the wizard of oz coach pumpkin I better hurry and get it in tho. by the way that was about 1970 I think